Enigma | A Young Justice Fanfiction

Chapter 12

Aspen never liked public speaking. The first time she ever had to stand up in front of her class and give a presentation, she almost passed out.

Over the years, little by little, she got better at public speaking. By the time she finished middle school, she was able to control her nerves and deliver a presentation without having a complete mental shutdown, but press conferences were a completely different story.

If class presentations almost made her pass out, then press conferences would've made her drop dead when she was younger. At least with school presentations, Aspen was able to rehearse what she was going to say over and over again until she had it perfect. But she had no way to rehearse for a press conference.

And to make matters worse, Oliver didn't tell anyone that she had returned when he set up the conference. If he did, then the media would have gotten the initial shock out of their systems beforehand, making it a lot less stressful for Aspen.

But no, Ollie wanted to be all dramatic about it. Because apparently, being an archery-based superhero in a bright green outfit wasn't dramatic enough.

So here she was today, sitting in an empty hallway with Oliver, trying to control her racing pulse.

Spoiler alert: she wasn't doing a good job.

"I see you figured out how that worked in no time," Oliver said out of nowhere, referring to the new phone he got her yesterday.

When he gave it to her, he offered to help show her how it worked and how to set it up. Aspen had politely declined, opting to figure it out herself. Not only did she love to play with new technology, but the phone was also simple enough that she knew how to use it and all of its features within the next hour.

"It was simple enough. I mean, we had more advanced tech in the Arrowcave before I went missing." A beat of awkward silence filled the space.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her.
She looked up at him from the bench and flashed him a cheesy smile. "Peachy." Oliver returned it with an equally cheesy smile and then gave her a look that meant something along the lines of 'Very funny. You know that's not what I was looking for'.

"Do you want to talk about something else to get your mind off of this?" Ollie suggested with a smirk. "Maybe we could start talking about your school situation, seeing as-"

"One stressful situation is enough, for now, I think," Aspen said, absolutely dreading that conversation that would most likely be coming up soon. Hopefully, she could continue to push the topic off.

She knew she would eventually need to continue school if she ever wanted to go to college and get a degree in computer science. She also knew that there wasn't a single college she wanted to go to that would accept her with the excuse: 'I was missing for four years, so I didn't get to finish high school. Sorry about that.' Aspen needed to go back to school, but that issue was for another day.

"Or maybe you'd like to go back to the bomb you dropped on us last week?" Oliver said, his voice taking on a more serious tone.

Aspen knew he and Dinah weren't happy that she was keeping more things from them, but not too much because Aspen told them herself.

"You act like there was another time when I could have presented it to you and Dinah."

"Okay, fine," Oliver said, defeated. "Look, all you have to do is answer a few questions, and stick to the story."

"Oh yeah," Aspen said sarcastically. "Reveal to a bunch of reporters that I'm back right before shoving your socially anxious daughter into the spotlight and expect her to keep a clear head. That's really smart. What could possibly go wrong?" Oliver gave her another look. Aspen knew he was just delighted that her sassy replies were back. "And what kind of 'story' is just telling the press that you have no idea what happened?"